


"I intend to be your last."

by persephone20



Series: musings of TVD season six [3]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: 6X14 Stay, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3579675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone20/pseuds/persephone20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Klaus comes back into Caroline's life, again and again, starting with Liz Forbes' death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2015 - Prologue

He comes to her after her mom dies. It's just after she and Stefan kissed and, somehow, she's not surprised. 

It's after the funeral, and the first time she's been alone in the house since her mom first got ill. The house that's now in her name. She's never owned property before. She suspected this was just one of the things in a long line of things that she'd come to learn as she 'grew up'. Even being turned into a vampire by Katherine didn't make her feel like she'd grown up, not like this. 

Her tear stained gaze meets his dry eyes, and she doesn't speak, and neither does he. He doesn't move towards her, and she moves past him, one hand on the stair rail. And they start up the stairs. 

He doesn't stay on the bed next to her. They don't exchange any words, and it's not the kind of thing to just happen without speaking about it. He knows her better than that. For Caroline, the whole night seems to go in slow motion. Turning on the lamp, looking around the room, opening the window, closing the window, sitting on the bed. Her supernatural hearing can hear no other sounds in the house other than the ones she and Klaus are making. And she can't talk about that. She just... can't talk about that. 

So she doesn't talk about anything. 

She picks up Jane Eyre and starts reading it to find out if it really would have been the terrible literary choice she'd worried it might be. It's three in the morning. Caroline is sitting on the bed, knees bent. Klaus on the chair beside her, sketching. Caroline doesn't look over or wonder if it's another sketch of her. And he doesn't volunteer. 

Stefan offered to come back to the house with her tonight, knowing she'd be coming back to an empty house. She knows how seriously he holds to his promise that he would look after Caroline after... After. And she promises he can go back to doing that too. Tomorrow. 

"Just give me one night," she said to him, holding both hands and meeting his eyes to make sure he knows she means it. 

She doesn't ask herself why it's different to have Klaus here with her. Tonight's not a night for deep introspection. It's a night for mourning. 

Klaus doesn't leave while she's still asleep. She probably only sleeps about 90 minutes in all, just after dawn. Jane Eyre is closed with the page marked, and put on the bedside table for her when she wakes up. Again, she and Klaus glance at each other, and Caroline just nods. She takes a breath, and pushes herself up higher on the bed, considering what to do now. 

In the lead up to the funeral, there were plenty of things that needed doing. Damon wrote the eulogy, but couldn't read it without Caroline going through it first. Flowers and a casket needed to be picked and paid for. Friends and acquaintances outside of town needed to be notified. Caroline's staring down the barrel of having nothing to do with her day. It terrifies her, and she moves very slowly through the house to take up more time. 

She knows she could leave with Klaus. Head straight out of Mystic Falls and no one would know where she'd gone. Without evidence of a struggle, they'd understand that she just needed to leave. Stefan would fight to find her, of course. But she had every confidence that Klaus could keep her hidden until she wanted to be found. 

She wondered how long hiding out from her life without her mom would appeal to her. A day? A week? A year? Two? When would she decide to turn off her humanity switch? Cause she knew, leaving like that, leaving all ties behind and having Klaus as her only guiding influence in her grief, it would only be a matter of time. A day? A week? A year? Years could run together, now. All her friends were basically immortal. Baring a stake through the heart, she'd never watch someone she loved die again. So she could afford to leave, afford to turn off her humanity for a few years until her grief died down and she could deal with it, and everyone would still be around. 

Except, Caroline could never be the sort of person who would do that. It wasn't the kind of daughter Liz Forbes had raised, and Caroline so desperately wants to be the kind of daughter her mom would be proud of, now more so than ever. It never occurs to her not to start over somewhere else because that was the reason she'd gotten so mad at Stefan. 

She doesn't need to explain this to Klaus. She's not going with him today. If it was ever a decision, Klaus knows it from the resolve on her face after she comes out of the shower. Sees it in the straight back and shoulders, the lift of her chin. He doesn't ask and Caroline doesn't need to answer a variation on the inane question, "Are you okay?"

He reaches out a hand to her. In 12 hours they spend together, he doesn't speak a word, doesn't try to touch her any more than that. With her whole focus on his outstretched hand, Caroline thanks him for the two moments not thinking of her mom. And she takes his hand. There's a whole new intimacy with it, as their fingers touch, and slide against each other. It's the first time they've touched since she had sex with him. Again a tree. In the middle of the day. She doesn't meet his eyes, but her lips quirk for an instant. And when she looks up at him, there's an answering quirk on his lips as well. Full, lips, surrounded by the couple of days old stubble that Caroline thinks of as part of his signature look. She allows herself a moment to look on him fondly, and Klaus' eyes narrow in return, his head tipping to the side, before she squeezes his fingers, then lets go. 

He knows her enough to know that it was never an option that the life he's outlined to her in the past would start today. He didn't come here because of that. Caroline knows that as well as he knows her. She also knows that nobody else in Mystic Falls or outside of it will know he was here today, and that she won't mention it. Not to Elena. Not to Stefan. 

And, she also knows that their small window of time is coming to an end. Because of all these reasons. 

"Thank you," she says, while not touching him. While specifically not touching him. "For coming here." Her eyelids flicker, but she makes sure to look back up to him as she says, "It means a lot to me."

" _You_ mean a lot to me," Klaus says, his low voice almost a growl as he says, "Of course I'm here."

Caroline nods her head once. Of course. She takes in one long breath then lets it out between pursed lips before looking away from him and out towards the day. Real life resumes out there, despite the dried tear stains she can feel on her cheeks and jaw. She's going to be able to deal with this. She's going to be able to deal with this. 

Klaus has already left the house she now owns before she reaches to pick up her handbag, and opens the front door.


	2. 2017 - Allies

**2017**.

After college graduation, Caroline and Elena take off on a road trip across the country. Caroline, and Elena, and Damon who has an amazing way of 'just showing up' in restaurants and motels where the girls are staying, even after Elena swears she's not texting him their location. 

"This is supposed to be our girls only time," Caroline complains. 

"It _is_ ," Elena insists. "I made you a promise. I can't help it that Damon is..."

"Talented? Resourceful? Dedicated?" Damon supplies from the opposite side of their booth.

Elena tries to hide the grin that lifts her lips, but not before Caroline turns on her and sees it. She throws her hands up. "Can't you guys take enough days out of your forever together? She knew me first, you know," Caroline says, slashing a dark glance towards Damon, making sure he knows she's blaming both of them for this. 

"Might be right, blonde," Damon says, taking a chip from the middle of their table and dipping it in sauce. "I got complacent once. Can't take the chance she'll forget about me again."

"Damon..." No humour in Elena's eyes this time. Two years on, and this was still a sore spot for them, Caroline saw. 

Damon smiles, but it's a quick, grim one. "Sharing is caring, Caroline," he says, cheering her with an uplifted glass of coke. 

Before Caroline can say another word, Elena's taken her phone out of her pocket and hands it to her best friend. 

"Caroline's right," she says. 

"W-what?" Damon stumbles.

"What's this?" Caroline asks, holding Elena's phone out in her hand. 

"It's my phone. I told you I haven't been texting him. I'll prove it." Elena swings her gaze back to Damon and there's a glint in her eyes as she wordlessly dares him to keep finding her now. Damon draws himself up, but Caroline has an even better idea as she turns the phone over in her palm. 

"No," she says, earning a shocked expression from Elena. "Damon should have it." She holds it out to him but, unlike Caroline, Damon doesn't simply take it. 

"What? No! I'm not taking Elena's phone," he says, inadvertently proving to Caroline both that Elena hasn't been lying to her and how Damon's been following after them all this time. 

"Fine." She places the phone down carefully on the table, mindful of the fact that it's Elena's and not Damon's. "We'll just leave it here then."

Damon splutters, "You're not just gonna leave Elena's phone here--!"

Elena starts getting up and walking out of the booth even before Caroline rises to leave. "We'll see you when we get back, Damon," Elena says with a gentle smile. "Just... make sure to stay out of trouble."

Damon looks from face to face as the two girls shoulder their bags and prepare to leave. Caroline sees the exact moment when he realises that he's been defeated, and feels a thrill of superiority. 

"Fine," he bites out, hand scraping across the table and Elena's phone disappearing into his pocket. "That wasn't a problem I had before you."

Elena raises her eyebrows. Caroline pauses on her way out. Damon only grimaces for a moment longer before pulling up a dazzling smile out of somewhere and waving a cheeky goodbye with one hand. "See you soon!"

Outside, Caroline links arms with Elena's as they go towards her car. "Let's make it as hard as we can for him to find us now without a GPS locater," Caroline says, and Elena laughingly agrees. 

Neither of them see the dusty blonde haired man leaning against his car and cupping his jaw in a hand as his gaze moves from Caroline to the cafe she just came out of.

**

"Couldn't help but noticing you out here all on your lonesome, mate."

Klaus walks into the garage where Stefan is working, having Compelled away the other worker on shift to find something else to do. Stefan wheels out from under a car. He uses the back of his wrist to wipe his forehead as he sits up to greet the familiar voice of his past. 

"To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?" Stefan asks, deadpan. 

Klaus crouches in front of him, forearms resting on his thighs. "Now, now, Stefan. One could argue that you invited this meeting."

Stefan narrows his eyes and shakes his head. "How could 'one' possibly argue that?" he asks.

"Simple." Klaus' lips widen in a thin smile. "Let's take a look back, shall we? 1864."

"Well." Stefan shifts and crosses his arms over his chest. "I hope you compelled the people in town not to come in to service their cars today. This is going to take a while."

"I'll just kill anyone who interrupts us," Klaus offers with a self-satisfied grin. 

Stefan says nothing, having learned multiple times in the past that to say more at this point will just egg the Original Vampire/Hybrid on.

"Now, where were we?" Klaus asks, looking off into the distance as though he had forgotten. "Ah yes. 1864. And Katherine. Of course, you couldn't have known her connection to me. Not then. But 60 years later, we had a wonderful time, didn't we mate? And, of course, _you_ had a wonderful time with Rebekah."

Stefan sighs but, again, keeps his silence.

"Twice is coincidence, as they say," Klaus goes on. "Three times, however. I believe they call that warfare."

Stefan just shakes his head, though they both know what's coming next. 

"Elena," Klaus says for both of them. "The wonderful doppelgänger come back to life again, and you just couldn't stay away. Very different to Katherine, of course. I was truly glad to find out I hadn't killed her, and not just because of the spell. You made a good song about not wanting her to be a vampire, didn't you, Stefan. Almost had every convinced. But you forget, I know you very well, my friend. And I know you have a habit of falling for strong, vampire women."

"What's with the history lesson, Klaus?" Stefan asks, finally breaking his silence. "We both know I fought as hard as anyone else for the cure."

"Ah. Did you though?" Klaus asks, with the manner of a therapist asking their patient to look a little deeper into themselves. 

Stefan flattens his lips. 

"No matter. Introspection for another time, then." Klaus takes a deep breath as he ramps up for the finish. "Elena looked the same as Katherine, so her connection to me could perhaps be overlooked. Twice only, then." 

Klaus rises from his crouch and takes a look around the garage. Slowly, watchfully, Stefan too comes to his feet. His arms remain crossed over his chest. He doesn't stalk after the older vampire as Klaus analyses their surroundings, but he doesn't take his eyes off him.

"It's a nice place you have here. I seem to recall hearing you started over in a place just like this when everyone thought Damon died." Klaus swings around to Stefan, a hand hovering over his chest in mock surprise. "Or was it this exact place?"

"Get to the point, Klaus," Stefan says, although he wonders if they haven't already come to that point with the mention of Damon's name. As far as he knows, Damon's off somewhere in the countryside with Elena and Caroline; all of them far away from here. Surely Klaus isn't threatening Damon or Elena? But Stefan finds himself already tensed to react to that eventuation with one hundred years of expectation.

"Exact same place, then," Klaus muses, deliberately ignoring Stefan's interruption. "Makes a man wonder why. I mean. You were so _close_ to Caroline just a couple of years ago."

And just like that, Stefan feels the cage close around him. 

"Three times, warfare, mate," Klaus says, his intense gaze not leaving Stefan, and not allowing the other vampire the luxury of looking away. "I reckon you've been trying to get my attention. Sorry about the wait. Had other things pressing. But now you've got it; my whole, undivided attention."

"Caroline's her own person," Stefan begins, not backing down.

"And we remember how well that went with Tyler," Klaus says in a low voice. "Whatever happened to Tyler?"

Another not-so-masked threat. Stefan focuses on the present. "Caroline and I are close. _Friends._ "

"And yet she, and Damon, and Elena, are off on an expedition around the country." Klaus' tongue runs over his canines contemplatively, finally breaking eye contact with Stefan and allowing him to do the same. "I can't help but notice you're alone in a garage. Starting over. Whatever happened there?"

"Caroline and I decided we were better as friends," Stefan tells him. "Not that it's any of your business."

"I didn't think you'd be surprised anymore by the number of things I find are my business," Klaus muses, before pinning Stefan with a look. 

Stefan sighs. "You didn't know her before she was a vampire. I did. She was... someone I helped grow up. You said I fall for strong vampire women. To me, Caroline is still sort of like a younger sister. I couldn't give her what she wanted. That's it." He puts his hands down, indicating he's done talking.

Klaus holds Stefan's gaze a little longer, and then shrugs. "No matter. I agree: you and Caroline are much better as friends."

"I'm pleased for you," Stefan says from between clenched teeth.

"Now, don't be like that, mate." Klaus almost sounds as though he's disappointed, but by the lazy half closed look of his eyes, Stefan knows he's anything but. "You know, I once considered you family. But we both know what I do to family."

"We do," Stefan says.

"So I'm trying something new. Something about being a father now. There are already enough enemies to my daughter. I thought it might be time to make some allies."

Stefan... blinks. He hasn't thought a great deal about the next time he was likely to come up against Klaus but he's fairly certain that, if he had, this would have been the last thing he expected. 

"Allies," Stefan says, only just refraining from wowing over Klaus knowing the meaning of the word. "What about me and Caroline? About three times being warfare and all that stuff?"

"As you were so quick to reassure me, there is no you and Caroline. A fact that I whole-heartedly applaud. I can't criticise you for your good taste in women."

"I'm so... pleased," Stefan says, gaze following Klaus as he takes to pacing again, waiting for him to strike. 

But there is no strike. When Klaus turns to face him again, he glances out past his shoulder towards the road that leads back into town. Stefan's gaze follows for a second, wary of an innocent bystander happening their way. 

"Well, now, since we're getting along so well, I'd better be going before some innocent crosses our path and makes me keep my promise from earlier." Klaus' eyes glint as he picks up the thought right up out of Stefan's mind. 

"That would probably be best," Stefan says, still warily. 

Klaus nods, then strides towards the garage door. "You should probably tell your brother we are all on the same side now," he says in passing. "You know. When he gets back."

"Wait." Stefan's brow furrows. "Does this mean you've started watching Caroline again?"

"My dear, Stefan. What makes you think I ever stopped?"


	3. 2021 - War

**2021**.

It's twenty years after the fall of the Twin Towers for the rest of the world to stop seeing America as a threat. Their resources crumble to such a state until they're no longer seen as the big power of the world and, soon after, war is declared on America. 

Caroline's in the middle of Manhattan when the first bombs hit. 

When she comes back to, the air is cloudy with smoke and dust. A thin film of it covers her body. She lurches to her feet, starting to call out for other survivors. No one answers. Caroline gags at the sight of so many dead bodies. Tears stream down her face, making the grime look more distinct. It's not until almost a kilometre out that the first person calls back to her. 

She spends the rest of that afternoon and evening helping with assorted clean up crews and paramedics on scene. In the chaos, it would be easy to slip her vampire blood to some of the survivors before Compelling them to forget, but she doesn't. She can't bring herself to. How can she choose which of the injured to save and which to let suffer?

It's after nine p.m. that she realises she left her phone behind where the bomb knocked her out, and by that point she's not going back for it. Road blocks are set up to stop civilians from going into certain areas. Nobody noticed that she came out of one of them. 

The news tells her that New York isn't the only city to have been hit. She needs to know that Elena and Stefan and Matt are okay. She Compels a line of people awaiting use of a public phone, getting herself to the front of the line without allowing herself to feel even a pang of guilt. Her knees go weak with relief as she hears Stefan's familiar voice on the other end of the line. 

"Caroline? Elena's been trying to get hold of you for hours."

"I know." She's started crying again, but she wipes useless tears away, wiping more dust and dirt across her features. "I lost my phone in the middle of everything. Are you okay? Is everyone else okay?"

"Elena and Damon are in Philadelphia, but they weren't near enough the city to get hit. No one in Mystic Falls was injured," Stefan reassures her by saying. 

"Okay. Good. Okay," Caroline says, weeping freely now. There's no point in wiping the tears away anymore. 

"Caroline. Do you have anyone with you? Do you need me to...?"

"No." Caroline tries to put a short laugh in the word, but it sounds half hysterical so she just concentrates on making her voice sound halfway normal. "No. I doubt you could even get in here right now. The roads are going to be packed. Emergency teams are everywhere. I just wanted to call... I just wanted to..." She gives up trying to talk. The tears are pushing against the back of her throat again.

"Everyone is okay," Stefan reassures her, knowing she needs to hear it again. She hears him exhale over the line. "You've got to be strong now, Caroline. Do you hear me? This is the first catastrophe you've seen as a vampire."

Caroline bites off saying, _What does that even mean?_

Other thing she doesn't say: She neglects to mention she was within the bomb zone, and that, if she'd been human, she would have been dead already. In the midst of the heightened emotion, she feels her face begin to shift, her teeth pressing down against her lower lip, the skin under her eyes become dark and veiny. She's losing ground on her infamous self-control. She's in the middle of a disaster; she knows she can't lose control right now. She knows suddenly exactly what Stefan means. 

"Stefan, I've gotta go," she says, words pushing out in a hurry and sounding strange to her ears due to the new length of her teeth. "I've gotta find somewhere... somewhere..."

"Find somewhere safe for you," Stefan says. "Don't forget to feed. You don't want to be at the edge of your control when you need to feed."

Other thing she doesn't say: She's already at the edge of her control. 

"Tell Elena I'm glad she's safe," she says instead. "Give her my love. I'll call her when I can," she says, before ringing off with a sob and looking at the line of people behind her. She can't feed from any of them without having to Compel all of them, and she's already done that once. She doesn't think she can do it again. 

With a groan that's almost more of a shriek, Caroline turns away from the phone and the line of people waiting to use it. She careens towards the nearest alleyway, just to get away from the main street. Once there, back against the bricks, she slides down until her butt touches concrete and she gives in freely to sobbing into her hands. 

She has no idea how long she's there before a voice cuts into her distraught conscious mind. 

"Hey. Miss. Are you okay? Do you need help?" 

Caroline raises her tear stained face to a dark haired man. The only thing she has time to note before she rises up to her feet again is that he's taller than her, which makes him perfect height for her to sink her teeth into his neck.

**

Her lauded self-control is in tatters on the ground, littered around the dead stranger who was just trying to help. Caroline takes several steadying breaths that do exactly fuck all before she makes the decision. She can't deal with this. She's on her own in a strange city she hasn't even lived in long enough for it to have felt like home before the bombs hit. She's only been a vampire for eight years and has a perfect record of not killing anyone. Until now. No one would blame her for just turning it off, just for long enough to get out of the city and back into real life. 

With the decision's made, it's as easy as a thought to turn her human emotions off. Goodbye pain, goodbye chaos. She comes back out of the alleyway and stalks down the street with cool eyes that take in the catastrophe that surrounds her without being touched any of it. 

She needs a shower. She's too far from her home to conveniently get there, but there are hotels all the way down the street just around the corner. And with hotels come room service, where a very helpful bellboy is about to assist her in becoming her midnight snack. She's had enough to curb her hunger now, but Stefan's right. She can't forget to feed. Then she needs to sleep, before leaving this city and making her next plans. 

It's well after midnight, but the street is lit up almost like it's dawn. Caroline feels oddly freed by that. Night is the vampire's time.


	4. 2021 - Paris

Rebekah Mikaelson's no Lexi, to be easily snuffed out in one of Damon's rages. Yes, he still has them. No, they're less often, just mostly fuelled by having a near hysterical Elena with him while Rebekah--not Caroline--is with Stefan.

" _Wrong blonde_ ," Damon hisses into the phone when they call to make sure the other Salvatore brother is okay. He hisses for Elena's benefit, but he's pretty sure she hears anyway. He turns around and gives her a small smile as he clicks off the receiver.

"Still no word from Caroline?" Elena asks, side stepping the issue completely. 

"Stefan's just heard from her," Damon answers quickly. "She told him she's going to call here the next chance she gets." 

She's still paler than normal and, truth be told, Damon's more worried about Caroline than he's been saying. He remembers World War I, which was nice and horrific enough and he already had his humanity switched off and his little brother to torment. Caroline's all alone in Manhattan. There isn't anyone that any of them knows that is currently living in Manhattan. 

"She's okay." He wills the words to be true as he drops the phone and reaches forward to take her by both arms, making her gaze back at him. "She's okay."

"I know," Elena says, to herself, to him. "She can take care of herself. She'll call."

She doesn't call. 

Elena calls Stefan twice a day until Rebekah answers his phone and coldly tells her he's _busy_ in the shower, and generously reminds her that Stefan and Elena are no longer together. Elena's still yelling and swearing on the other end of the line long after Damon can hear the Mikaelson sister has hung up. 

Elena goes very still and, whatever gets said next, Damon knows he's not going to like it. 

"Klaus," Elena says.

Turns out, Damon needs a stronger vocabulary for 'not going to like it'. 

"I'm going to need a stronger drink for this conversation," Damon says. His hand is already cupped and ready for the tumbler he's about to pull out of the cupboard as he turns away from her. 

"I'm onto something here, Damon." Elena follows him, and this is the first time in a very, very long time that Damon wishes she just didn't.

He tries to keep his face calm or neutral as he glances up at her over the whiskey that he's pouring into the glass. This isn't just a whiskey conversation. This is a get rip-roaringly drunk with Alaric before going on an ill-advised vampire hunt conversation. Unfortunately, Alaric's not looking so spry now that he's 1. alive, 2. no longer a vampire, and 3. ageing as fast as a normal person. Damon knows that, if he called for him, Alaric would still listen, but he's the last person Damon wants having anything to do with Klaus again. Scratch that: _second_ last. 

Four years ago, Stefan told him that they were 'on the same side' as Klaus now and Damon stupidly-- _stupidly_ \--shared that information with Elena. Nothing has made him more glad that in the past four years none of them have had anything more to do with Klaus. He has no intension of changing that.

"There's always been something between them. I don't know exactly what but, if Caroline's in trouble, you can be he'll get her out of it."

He glares at Elena, exactly _because_ she has a good point.

Swallowing half the tumbler of whiskey, Damon asks what they're both not saying. "And if she's already dead?"

Elena shakes her head minutely, rejecting even the notion. "I'm not giving up on her," Elena says, and her voice is shaking only slightly. "Not Caroline."

Damon downs the rest of the glass in resignation. "Well, it just so happens that we have a line to the infamous Mikaelson family," he says, with a nod to her discarded phone. "Or, at least, we did if you didn't completely piss her off around twenty minutes ago."

**

Caroline ends up in Paris because it's the farthest point that she could think of to travel from America and, besides, it's the fashion capital of the world. She may have her humanity switch turned off, but she's still _Caroline_. 

As soon as the airways in and our of America are clear again, Caroline Compels her way onto the first flight to Paris via Amsterdam, first class thank you very much! She smiles so brightly at the flight attendant in her red, red lipstick who is just so happy to help. 

Paris is a new start for Caroline. She's never been outside of America before, and _certainly_ never been anywhere like this before. She takes a deep breath in at her first sight of the luscious city, outside of the airport terminal. Small details such as the greens of the grass in the median strip on the freeway are a different colour than what she's used to in America. The cab driver asks her in the most polite French accented English where she wants to go. She hasn't brought much with her, but that will be easy to fix. 

Elena and Stefan cross her mind now and again. She still remembers how she promised to call Elena the next time she got a chance, but she knows Stefan would have passed on her first message, enough to reassure Elena that Caroline is alright. The practical side of her knows that isn't going to be enough, not on its own. It's just that she doesn't care. 

And then too many weeks pass by for Caroline to reasonably be able to make the phone call without having to run through tedious explanations. She has no doubt at all that both Damon and Elena will recognise a vampire with their humanity switch turned off in a second, and she's just not ready to give that up yet. 

Instead, her first weeks in the new city are a blur of shopping, feeding, sight-seeing, feeding and the beginnings of picking up a new language. Caroline never had a great mind for languages, even in school. Still, there's something just so... magical about it. She doesn't even feed from the young tutor she hires to teach her. There are other ways to spend the time. A lot of not G rated words are the first to make it into her new French vocabulary. 

Uninclined to waste her day time hours in a job--even one in Paris--Caroline resorts to a combination of Compelling and stealing anything she wants, or needs. She starts with small things at first: food in the house for when Jean-Claude comes over for tutoring, airy French attire to fit the season. But as she gradually notes the jewellery of the other French women, she knows she must own it. 

"My goodness, that's a beautiful piece." Caroline says, sinking into a chair opposite the woman she admires. "Is that a Victoire de Castellane?"

As the woman lifts perfectly painted finger nails to touch the brightly coloured earring, Caroline takes hold of the woman's other hand, and gazes at her steadily across the table. 

"You want to give that to me," she says. She watches the other woman's eyes dilate as she goes to do exactly as Caroline bid. She lifts her other hand to take off first one earring and then the other before offering them both across the table, into Caroline's waiting hands. "Thank you," she tells her. "You are so generous. You won't mind if I..." 

Lifting the hand that offered the jewellery, Caroline turns it palm up till she can make out the thin, blue lines that run beneath the delicate wrist. She hungers. She always hungers, more than she remembers even in her early days as a new vampire. Her teeth sink into the skin in what she make sure looks like nothing more than a love bite between lovers. 

"Forget this."

She only adds items that will compliment her lapis lazuli ring, as she has no choice in whether to wear that, but everything else is fair game. Before too long, Caroline has a collection in her new home that is worth several thousand Euro.

She's not a Ripper, not a diabolical killer. Caroline is becoming something else entirely. 

When she turns around from her latest victim one sunny afternoon, Caroline is only half surprised to see Klaus gazing back at her. He stands in a crisp suit, with hands clasped in front of him, fingers lightly looped around one wrist. 

Caroline smiles, which garners an answering grin from her thousand year old vampire admirer.

"Been keeping busy, I see," Klaus says, nodding to the most recent acquisition on her wrist. 

Caroline doesn't try to cover it up. She's shameless as she replies, "Should have known it was only a limited time until we ran into each other."

"Seeing as how you're in my backyard now, love."

"Couldn't keep forcing you to make those long journeys every time you decided to see me," Caroline says, with all the confidence she's never learned to speak with him before. Not when there were people she loved around her, she realises. She's free of all that now. 

Klaus' smile widens. "Very quick, very witty," he approves. "I like this new Caroline."

Caroline shrugs, lowering her eyelids coquettishly. "You liked the old Caroline. Seems it doesn't much matter."

In three strides, Klaus is directly in front of her. A very different expression's on his features as he uses his fore finger to lift her coy chin. "You've got that exactly right, love."

With him standing so close to her, there's only one thing to do. 

Caroline takes the plunge, digging her fingers into his hair and dragging him close to her, kissing him with all she's worth. She doesn't care that they're making a spectacle. That's another one of the upsides of being in France. The city of fashion and jewellery is also the city of love. They're not in America, and nobody cares if Caroline stands in the middle of the street, kissing Klaus and being kissed as though there's not enough air in the world. 

They barely make it back to Caroline's home. There aren't any vows of love between them. Indeed, that would undermine the humanity she's turned off. And he makes no reprise of sentiments he's shared before, even though the fact that he's here speaks for him. 

They hook up several times that first day, and then several more in the next week. It becomes another part of her day: feeding, shopping/stealing, sex. _Sex_. She forgets why it was ever so important to keep him at arms length. 

On their fourth day together, Klaus reminds her. "Your friends are very worried about you." 

His finger is tracing the line of her back. As he speaks the words, she feels his eyes on her, evaluating her reaction to his news. 

Caroline lifts an eyebrow. "You've spoken to Elena?"

Klaus scoffs. "Please. Like the Salvatore brothers would allow that without blackmail and torture." He doesn't need to specify who would be taking charge of said activities. "Stefan let it be known, however, that Elena is quite upset. Apparently, you were supposed to call her, and didn't. After Manhattan."

It's been long enough now since the bombing that it's no longer on every news channel. For Caroline, it seems like another life. One she's slowly being brought back into. 

"And have you been reporting back to them?" Caroline flips onto her back, raising herself up on the pillows. She doesn't feel quite so interested in sensual play now that he's started talking. 

"I think you know me better than that, love."

"Do I?" Caroline asks the question idly, like there's no real investment on her part as to his answer. She could have been inspecting her nails.

Klaus gives a little growl under his breath. "I should bloody well hope so."

Caroline shrugs, changing the subject. "Is Stefan the real reason why you came looking for me?"

"I had reports of a young, blonde thief coming to me from multiple sources," Klaus tells her instead.

Caroline pushes herself up further against the bed head and frowns. "I've been very careful. How has that--"

"Let me be more specific, love," Klaus interrupts. "Young, blonde, _vampire_ thief. I have my sources in every part of the world. You aren't being subtle to people in the know. I wanted to see it for myself."

"So now you've seen." Caroline crosses her legs and her arms, limiting what he can see.

"So I have. A great deal sooner than I thought I would. But then, I didn't believe you'd turn off your humanity in the first ten years after Tyler."

For the first time, Caroline doesn't know what to say. 

"Don't get me wrong," Klaus says, fingers not so subtly inching back towards her body. "I don't have any complaints. Nor do I have any expectations."

Caroline considers batting his questing fingers away, but that would only leave them both without the good feelings they both crave with no good reason. And he's not asking anything of her, she tells herself, so there's nothing she needs to refuse. "Good," she tells him after a minute, before opening herself up to him again.


End file.
